He has stated a few times in the past that he really starts liking the whole rocket-thing: Even more so than his coding brilliance.
Therefor I think it's in the best interest of gamers all around the world (or at least admirers of tech-engines;-) ), that he does not win, or even gets close to winning, any of these contests.

Preferably here would of course be that one of those rockets would be misfired, killing one of the crowd (or killing a father of someone who can then become Carmack's arch nemesis) ; And with some everlasting guilt on his part, we'll be guaranteed that Mr. Carmack's coding abilities will be put towards games.

Carmack isn't a particularly brilliant programmer. He's just pragmatic and dedicated to putting in the effort to create something.

The code in Q1-Q3 is your standard stuff, nothing special in there and in fact it's too limited in many areas that could use a little more flexibility (ie. it was a bad design). It's basically a hacker's engine. You know, like what a kid would write in his garage. This is pretty much why he had to write a whole new engine from scratch each time. However limited in design, hi

he code in Q1-Q3 is your standard stuff, nothing special in there and in fact it's too limited in many areas that could use a little more flexibility (ie. it was a bad design)...Nothing brilliant about that though.

Nonsense. I didn't see you write it. Brilliance means having the vision and persistence to get the job done when it needs to be done. To know what has to be done, to be able to make the right compromises, etc. Carmack really is f*ing brilliant.

Looking at the job that somebody else has done successfully and thinking that you could have done it, now that you have seen it, is ridiculous. Technically I get the same thoughts what I look at Carmack's sources (or at the Linux kernel sources for that matter). But the point is, you or I didn't write those things.

I was writing 3D engines at the same time that Quake came out. Mine were written in high level languages, because code reusability was very important to the project's sponsors. Quake was written to do one thing and do it as fast as possible. Carmack wanted a high frame rate, and was willing to sacrifice everything else to achieve it. It turned out that high frame rates translated into high sales, meaning high profits. Other people at that time had other priorities, and were willing to sacrifice frame r

Sir, you can't be serious. You'd have somebody be killed so you can sit in your parent's basement and waste your life on computer games? I hope you're joking, but even if it's a joke, I find it rather distasteful.

Now don't get me wrong. A good game can be a great way to relax a bit. But wishing a group of people's lives to be pretty much ruined and another person's life to be ended for the sake of relaxing a bit? You need to get out more.

While John (Romero) deserves every single one of the -20 Daikatana points, he should get at least as many points back for his Melvin comic strips [smugmug.com]. His site used to have quite a few of them, but now all the links go the smugmug homepage, and his gallery there only has this one.

Just been watching the live feed of the level 2 challenge, and the first launch has been aborted. The engines fired briefly, but then Pixel tipped over onto its side. Luckily the damage doesn't appear to be too serious, there's some speculation they might make a second attempt at launch. Commiserations Armadillo!

This winning flight is welcome good news at a time when many have concerns about a down-turn in commercial space [venturebeat.com] and Obama, the likely next President of the United States has recently said of such prizes [thecarpetb...report.com], "When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn't put a bounty out for some rocket scientist to win â" he put the full resources of the United States government behind the project..."

Obama, the likely next President of the United States has recently said of such prizes...

To be fair, it was probably just some (lame) election rethoric on Obama's part, even though Obama might be more inclined to go for big state funded programmes rather than offer incentives to private enterprise.

By the way, what is the deal with Obama...? Europe has always been leaning slightly towards Democrat candidates in presidential elections, but it's reached ridiculous levels this time. The media show nothin

Are you really surprised? I'm Canadian so have a somewhat similar view that many of the Europeans do, in that the rest of the world is REALLY hoping Obama wins. After 8 years of bush threatening to put the USA into another depression and stuck in a war it can't win(and should not have started), it is small wonder the Europeans don't want someone in the white house that shares many of Bush's views and a vice president who makes Bush look like a libertarian. Not to mention the prospect of McCain surviving his

Well to be honest there are 5 people that have a public profile Obama, McCain and Palin, and Tina Fey and some guy called joe the plummer. The democratic vice president candidate (I know his name just) has no coverage I believe he is a man. Anything else would be a guess.

Obama seems like he would change things for the better, John McCain will ensure Obama has to justify his actions as president. That seems like a good outcome.

It's funny really but I think Obama would put his country first and his p

Not only do the other posts below make points, but I use XBMC for my television, do not read the newspaper, and have Sirius radio (no ads).

There is essentially no broadcast news or advertising in my life (adblock as well of course) so the only information I have on your candidates is information I have gleaned from purposefully researching (mostly) American political news sources and web sites on the internet.

McCain had many of the same views as bush on key issues such as war, abortion, taxes the list goes

It is certainly plausible that Obama wasn't very serious about what he said. It is, however, unfortunate if our main hope for avoiding another 50 years of technosocialist suppression of progress in space hinges on our faith in the next President's lack of integrity.

It's kind of hard to say "he wasn't talking about outer space" when he makes specific reference to the Apollo program and "rocket scientists". True, his response was to a proposal for an energy prize, but look at his own words.